The return of the real : the avant-garde at the end of the century
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The return of the real : the avant-garde at the end of the century
（October books）
MIT Press, c1996
- : hc
- : pb
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Note
Bibliographical references: p. [227]-292
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: hc ISBN 9780262061872
Description
After the dominant models of art-as-text in the 1970s and are now witness to a "return to the real" - to art and theory that seek to be grounded in bodies and sites, identities and communities. Foster's concise analysis of art practices over the past three decades traces important models at work in art and theory, with special attention to the controversial connections between the two during this period. It also focuses on the relation between prewar and postwar avant-gardes: how does the return of a past practice affect the development of a present one? The result is a genealogy of art and theory from minimalism and pop to the present. Chapters can be read independently, although Foster interrelates practices of sometimes disparate time periods and methodologies. Foster disputes the common assumption that contemporary art is only redundant, belated or condemned to pastiche. On the contrary, he suggests that the avant-garde always returns to us "from the future", repositioned by innovative practice in the present. And he poses this retroactive mode of art and theory against the reactionary undoing of progressive culture that is so pervasive today.
If "The Return of the Real" begins with a narrative of the historical avant-garde, it concludes with a reading of our contemporary situation - and what it portends for future practices of art and theory, culture and politics.
Table of Contents
- Who's afraid of the neo-avant-garde?
- the crux of minimalism
- the passion of the sign
- the art of cynical reason
- the return of the real
- the artist as ethnographer
- whatever happened to postmodernism?
- Volume
-
: pb ISBN 9780262561075
Description
In The Return of the Real Hal Foster discusses the development of art and theory since 1960, and reorders the relation between prewar and postwar avant-gardes. Opposed to the assumption that contemporary art is somehow belated, he argues that the avant-garde returns to us from the future, repositioned by innovative practice in the present. And he poses this retroactive model of art and theory against the reactionary undoing of progressive culture that is pervasive today.
After the models of art-as-text in the 1970s and art-as-simulacrum in the 1980s, Foster suggests that we are now witness to a return to the real-to art and theory grounded in the materiality of actual bodies and social sites. If The Return of the Real begins with a new narrative of the historical avant-gard, it concludes with an original reading of this contemporary situation-and what it portends for future practices of art and theory, culture and politics.
Table of Contents
- Who's afraid of the neo-avant-garde?
- the crux of minimalism
- the passion of the sign
- the art of cynical reason
- the return of the real
- the artist as ethnographer
- whatever happened to postmodernism?
by "Nielsen BookData"
